Suspect it'll be one of those tantalising loose ends.

Or it's just there to let us know that the BA know something's up about Min. The killing was incidental.

Unrelated question.

Moggy is a Dreamwalker like Egwene. She has no need to use ter'angreal or to enter TAR in the flesh. Like Egwene when she's held captive in the WT, Moggy could communicate with whoever she chose to, and even to use OP in TAR, while being held in Salidar.

Even though the Supergirls know that, how could they cut her off? Did they even try? IIRC, there are no references to this.

Also, Moridin is a dreamwalker and so is Cyndane. Halima is a weak one but close enough physically to track her. Even if Moggy is too ashamed or fearful to contact them, why wouldn't they find Moggy's dreams and debrief her, forcibly if required, before she's rescued?

It makes the whole prisoner sequence in Salidar a little more difficult to believe.

 

I considered this, originally, just after tGS. I offered the unlikely scenario that Egwene could pull the captured Aes Sedai into the dream and sever them--severed they would be free of the a'dam, and the torture it brings. They would also no long risk the revelation of gateways, and they may well in time be healed.

 

And then a simple problem occured to me--what if the a'dam blocks acces to the dreams of its victims. Once this occured to me, I recalled exactly the situation you describe--Moghedien successful long term imprisonment under the a'dam despite her ability as a dreamwalker.

 

And that's what I offer back to you. Dunno if it helps.

May be worth asking Brandon? The a'dam is definitely a possibility and it would work - except that there are too many dreamwalkers who can't channel, hence immune to the a'dam. So it would have to be something convoluted like a channeler-dreamwalker can be blocked from TAR by using an a'dam while a non-channeler dreamwalker cannot!

Unrelated question.

Moggy is a Dreamwalker like Egwene. She has no need to use ter'angreal or to enter TAR in the flesh. Like Egwene when she's held captive in the WT, Moggy could communicate with whoever she chose to, and even to use OP in TAR, while being held in Salidar.

Even though the Supergirls know that, how could they cut her off? Did they even try? IIRC, there are no references to this.

Also, Moridin is a dreamwalker and so is Cyndane. Halima is a weak one but close enough physically to track her. Even if Moggy is too ashamed or fearful to contact them, why wouldn't they find Moggy's dreams and debrief her, forcibly if required, before she's rescued?

It makes the whole prisoner sequence in Salidar a little more difficult to believe.

Exactly who killed her is not really important to the plot so Brandon may have skimmed over it in reading the notes. In fact, maybe RJ didn't even bother to "work" it out - any of a random 1/2 dozen BA or Mesaana would fit the bill. Of course, given what happened with Asmo ---

In EotW they never stayed in the stedding, as I recall. Wait, do you mean when he was taken by the Whitecloaks? I believe Perrin was unconscious at the time.

 

IIRC Perrin goes into the Wolf Dream only from TDR onwards.

 

And in ToM he once enters the Dream near ToG, and then pretty much every practise session with Hopper, I assume. This was after the dreamspike was in place.

 

Also the Finnland can be entered via TAR, according to Birgitte, at least.

I can't remember the stedding sequences in EoTW and I don't have the book.

About Finnland - Brigitte says the ToG can be entered from TAR - the ToG is not Finnland proper, it is itself a portal to the Finn realms.

We have explicit quotes from RJ to the effect that Finnland cannot be entered from TAR.

Slightly more likely to be a WT-Elaida supporting BA member, rather than one of those who went to Salidar, I think. The killing was apparently connected to the coup to unseat Suian.

Nice questions.

Several interesting scenarios need to be considered and I can't find any textual answers.

1) TAR exists in the steddings but since they are an alternate reality, TAR there may be shielded off from TAR in WoTland and you can't travel via TAR from one to the other space. This may be true for Finnland/ Blight as well.

Further, it's unclear whether all the steddings connect to each other in TAR (if it exists) and if so, what about Ways? I don't think there's clarity about whether the Ways are accessible in TAR and they do connect steddings, more or less.

Backing this hypothesis of the existence of TAR in steddings, wolves and wolfbrothers don't have bad vibes in steddings - they don't seem to feel cutoff and uncomfortable as they might, if TAR didn't exist there.

The Dreamspike clearly lets people into TAR on either side of the barrier. But they find it difficult / near impossible to cross the barrier in TAR. Perhaps the steddings have similar effects but stronger - it's impossible to crossover in TAR from a stedding to normal WoTland.

2) Alternatively TAR doesn't exist in the steddings. (Ditto Finnland). Did Perrin enter the wolfdream in EOTW when he was in the stedding? I can't remember because that would offer some hints.

How does Perrin even know what a Weave is when he deflects the balefire attack in the Tower?

How would Berlain know how long its been since a Power forged weapon was made?

 

She's very learned, might just know when the Oaths were developed.

She may be stating a common belief -- power wrought weapons would be part of the lore of the Third Age, high-class swordsmiths/ weaponmakers would know about them and there are a lot of them around since they don't bust or degrade easily.

Amaresu I believe is the right spelling, which might help in the search for information. All I recall about her is that she appears with the Heroes of the Horn when Mat blows it at Falme, so obviously she is someone special. I think she had a named weapon or some such?

Take off on the sun goddess of Japan I think. That name would be closer to Ameterasu.

There's a long thread on

"Balefire doesn't work like that"

Anybody who knows something about OP and AS-warder bonds and knows about the Min-Rand bond will wonder what exactly happened since Min is not a channeler.

Maybe Cadsuane, Merise, & co. write it off as Rand having bonded Min rather than the other way around.

Mat knows about the Min-Rand relationship; I don't think he knows about the bonding unless Elayne/ Brigitte told him off-screen.

Do the WOs know about Avi's bond with Rand? Most probably - they were around in the Caemlyn Palace and they could simply have ordered her to tell them what on Earth was going on with that weird usage of OP, if they felt it.

As far as I've been able to find, it's never said that you cannot enter the Blight while in Tel'aran'rhiod. Could be missing something, though.

Along with the Stedding, the Blight and Finnland (both) are also not accessible via TAR.

Several RJ quotes to that effect - I'm sure one of the experts can dig them out of theoryland.

 

Actually, I had this discussion with a friend of mine who was a linguist quite a number of years ago, and I expressed the same ideas you are, but apparently its not as difficult as one might think. Randlandish is not a foreign language to an AoL'er, but rather a descendent language. One which the syntax and grammar of is much much simpler, and based largely on that of the Old Tongue.

 

So a lot of what takes time in learning a language, they already had--and the basis leant itself to an instinctive understanding of the heart of the language. My linguist friend didn't have huge problems with the whole concept.

 

well, I don't know. Did you tell your friend that we are talking about a period of three thousand years? I'm not a linguist but I have a hard time imagining much of any language surviving over three thousand years to remain recognizable. I've read an old Russian text from 12th century and it's basically incomprehensible.

Both Arabic and Tamil have survived recognisably for over 1500 years. A modern speaker can follow the old tongue.

Anybody who knows Spanish/ Italian/ French will recognise large chunks of Latin and finds it fairly easy to learn another language from that group.

Anybody who knows any one of a dozen North Indian languages will recognise Sanskrit and Farsi.

In all cases, you're talking 1500-2000 years plus without unbroken literacy. Literacy freezes grammar and usage solidly.

If you're talking post-literacy - as in modern English versus post-Gutenberg English of say 16th century like Shakespeare, the recognisation factor is much higher.

There aren't dozens of nations the Dragon was born to. Asmodean may not be the most saavy Forsaken, but it doesn't take a manipulative genuis to make the connection.

 

As a side note--how is it a Dues ex Machina? I mean even say Asmodean knowing a song from Manetheren was a mistake on RJ's part, how would that constitute an act of God coming down in a bid to complete the narrative? It solved no convuluted plot points, so why do you name it so?

 

It might not be Deus ex machina but it certainly stretches believability. I agree with Atsnok on that. The whole idea that the Forsaken could even learn to speak the current language so quickly in pretty ridiculous IMO. RJ said that the language of Randlands is very easy to learn. I don't care how easy it is, they can't learn it that fast, learn various stories and the politics of the current world and speak without an accent too. Balthamel and Aginor seem to have only just been freed and yet they speak perfectly. Lanfear shows up early in TGH and yet she speaks perfectly too, presumably with a Cairhienin accent. Nobody suspects her of being a foreigner, certainly. Hurin quickly identifies the innkeeper at Foregate as a foreigner by her accent yet he never suspects "lady Selene" of being one.

There may be a small hint RJ fitted in there in the song of Manetheren business as to where Asmo was, and what he was doing, before he appeared in the Waste?

As to language, it's like the OT was Latin or Sanskrit and gave rise to a Common instead of many related languages. It's fantasy but the world retained literacy and the printing press post-Breaking so, it's not that crazy that the same language continued to be spoken in most places with some variations.

So, it wouldn't be difficult to pick up for an OT speaker - even easier than say, a Spanish speaker learning Italian.

It's possible that Carhein with its great library (which meant continuous connection to the OT) and its very precise enunciation, which is often remarked upon, actually retained an accent that was very close to the classical OT. So Meirin may just have been speaking in her own normal accent.

Hurin BTW is a Borderlander and not a very well-travelled one and he's guessing at a Carheinian accent so, how much do you rely on him anyway?

We also do have an RJ quote to the effect that Balty and Aginor were in touch with the world, which is why they aged more than the others. (Balty is also a specialist anthropologist, which means he/she probably has liguistic gifts.)

1) Hurin smells violence but he can't necessarily tell if its "evil" violence. Ingtar would smell of violence that night but so would every other person in the Fal Dara keep who had been fighting with the fades and trollocs that got inside.

2) Was Hurin even there that night? He's introduced to us later as the expedition to retrieve the HoV starts.

Rj never went into those details but it'd be interesting to know when channelers normally went into menopause because that would equate to a known age-range.

We know that Siuan was no longer fertile at ~42 years (the Yellows were surprised to find her fertile again when she arrived at Salidar), so it stands to reason that they go through menopause at the normal age.

 

If by Renelle you mean Reanne Corly (the late Kinswoman)

Perhaps he meant Renaile din Calon Blue Star? Not sure how old she is, though.

Early 40s is very early for a "normal" menopause. It's usually a late 40s-early 50s hormonal change.

BTW I don't remember a reference to Suian being fertile again but I'll take your word for it.

One possible counter-example. Martine Janata was much older - in her 70s or 80s when she burnt out. But she had several children after that.

So it's possible that its Oath Rod influence that causes early menopause if it happened with Suian.

Another possible reference - when Flynn heals Rand in ACoS, an AS(Sumeko?) says she would even bear his kids --- I don't know how old she's supposed to be or how long she's worn the shawl.

a couple of quick Wise Ones questions.

1. how many are there? and how many of them can channel? Sevanna had at least 300 Wise Ones that could channel with her in Malden. and that's just Shaido. Rand has 11 clans. So he has over 3000 Wise Ones channelers? that's an army bigger than Asha'man and Aes Sedai put together. yet he hardly seems to use them.

2. Sorilea is supposed to be over 300 years old yet she can barely channel. how is it that she slowed so much? we are told that the slowing effect depends on strength in the OP.

 

Alivia is supposed to be far older than that (I can't remember off the top of my head) and she looks barely middle aged, so Sorilea being a wrinkled out walnut at 300 seems reasonable enough to me!

I'm not talking about the looks here but of the fact that Sorilea lived as long as she did (and is still going strong). Alivia is extremely strong in the OP so no wonder that she slowed so much more than the other. Sorilea can barely channel, yet she lived over 300 years.

 

 

Well the life span of a channeler who's not bound by the Oaths is supposed to be something like 600 years. So for her to make it to half of that as a weak channeler is not unbelievable.

 

but if I do remember correctly Alivia is 500 or 600 years old and looks like a middle aged woman, so if the lifespan would be maxed at 600, shouldn't she look like someone about to drop dead?

no. 500-600 is supposed to be the average channeler lifespan for an average channeler. Alivia is super strong in the power so her natural lifespan is presumably significantly longer than her current (admittedly very old) age.

Apart from Lucker's point about Alivia's age, we've come across at least one kinwswoman in the same age-group who wasn't extra-strong.

By AoL standards, Alivia is in late middle age. She's the equivalent of say, a well-preserved, fit 55-60 year old.

Rj never went into those details but it'd be interesting to know when channelers normally went into menopause because that would equate to a known age-range.

Some more information for The Great Mat Timeline Caper:

 

"Anyway, you've heard the lot of it now, Perrin. That bloody Brown brought us here. Haven't seen her in over two weeks, now."

 

-- ToM, A Teaching Chamber, p. 707

 

This takes place right after Perrin arrives in Caemlyn, so just a few days after Veins of Gold. It doesn't add anything we didn't already work out, but it confirms that Mat arrived in Caemlyn at least 20 days before VoG.

 

-- dwn

Straightening Mat's timeline until ToG entry is fairly easy.

Elayne is a good referent - the cannons were first demonstrated around 5 days before VoG (a WoT week =10 days before Egwene nailed Mesaana). We know Mat waited around 10 days before he got to see Elayne -- etc.

The problems arise when he goes to ToG - he seems to spend a helluva lot of time in there (time runs differently in Finnland)) since Perrin-Grady gives him a Gate around VoG + 7-9. (We know Perrin arrives in Andor around VoG +5-6. ) And then Mat sees Rand talking to Borderlanders, which is VoG +24-25.

We can follow Perrin and Rand's timelines pretty clearly through.

Rand does VoG on night 2 after nearly killing Tam, VoG +1, he meets Egwene and says Field of M @+27 days. (WoT month is 28 and he intends to go to Shayol Gyhul on 28). He returns to Tear (VoG +2), then he spends one day or so in Bandar Eban

Edit: Then there's a big gap of maybe 20 days.

Then he rescues Ituralde at Maradon (VoG+20-odd).

The next day he's off to meet the Borderlanders and then he's at field of Merrilor (VoG+26?)

The question mark here is, does he spend the interim in Tarwin's Gap?

It might fit because he didn't deal with the BT and there's not much else he could have done.

Meanwhile Nyn does her test approx (VoG+3), grabs the bond etc.

One VoG+4, the WT attack starts in force.

Perrin is present at VoG. he breaks the D-Spike on VoG +4 ,

pulls his army out to Whitebridge and then goes back on VoG +5 and beats up the trollocs from the Portals.

Then he returns with the Whitecloaks to Andor and then Merrilor.

In Andor, he puts Grady on the job of Gate-ing Mat to ToG, and Grady also discovers the BT is D-Spiked

Elayne meets Egwene & Nyn on VoG +2.

I think you have a problem reconciling timelines because first we see Elayne from Egwene's timeline which is post VoG and then she drops back into Mat's timeline which starts much earlier. She meets Mat quite a bit before VoG. The cannon demo comes around 10 days before VoG I think.

b) Elayne HERSELF referred to the civil war as a succession war, when she was adamant it wasn't a succession unless one House succeeded another in KoD. BTW Thom did that as well, and I believe him equally unlikely to make that mistake. If I'm not mistaken, the same happened in TGS somewhere.

 

It was a war over who would succeed to the Lion Throne, thus a succession war. It just happened to end with Trakand retaining the crown.

 

c) Wasn't there something off in Elayne's timeline? She was aligned with Mat at the beginning, yet when Gawyn arrived at Caemlyn she was aligned with Egwene, plus there was her meeting with Egwene in the Dream World which I don't know how to fit in. I do remember that I felt something was seriously wrong the first time we got to see White Tower dwelers from her PoV (when that was, I'm not sure).

 

It's a bit wonky, but using Veins of Gold as a zero point, we get (very roughly):

 

Day -30 - Verin takes Mat to Caemlyn; Verin talks to Egwene; Egwene reunites the Tower

 

Day -30..0 - The gholam kills Lopin; Mat and Elayne hug; Mat kills the gholam (it's cloudy);

 

Day 0 - Veins of Gold

 

Day 0..30 - Elayne and Nynaeve meet Egwene in T'A'R; Gawyn returns to Caemlyn (it's sunny); Perrin and Galad hug; Egwene and Gawyn hug; Mat catches a badger; Perrin and Elayne hug

 

Day 30 - Mat enters the ToG; Everyone else goes to watch Egwene and Rand fight

 

The biggest problem I see is that Mat looks to have spent around 60 days in Caemlyn. We know that Verin died about 30 days before Veins of Gold, and we know everyone was gathering at the Field of Merrilor about 30 days after. I suppose you could argue he was seeing to the dragon construction and planning, but that seems a bit of a stretch to me.

 

-- dwn

Verin died the night of the Seanchan raid. That's two days before VoG.

The Elayne Timeline aligns peacefully with Mat.

The Field of Merrilor is a question-mark -everyone seems to have arrived early.

It's a pseudo-stedding (never heard that phrase before, but it's succinct) and since it doesn't stop a weave from outside the Guardian, someone could balefire Far Madding. That's a curious notion, huh.

Rand came close to BF-ing the Borderland armies. Assuming possession of a well, somebody could use BF inside FM as well.

UK Edition, page 597

 

"She wove Earth, Spirit and Air into a Healing.."

 

Aes Sedai healing is Water, Spirit and Air. Given Egwene's lack of Talent for healing, she shouldn't be using Earth.

 

Also, how did Tam leave the camp (presumably with Nynaeve) when there was a dreamspike over it??? I was so confused about this.

At that stage, Slayer is still experimenting. This is the period when Grady says for a while we couldn't make Gates but we can again.

It's possible that another reason he ditched Avi's sword was all in the attempt to harden himself.

He just prefers wearing Hawkwing's sword.

He still has Laman's as well.

In technical terms, it could be as simple as Justice may be a bastard sword (can be used with a single hand or both hands) versus Laman's being a two-hander but his thoughts make it appear that there's more to it.

Could be hilarious if the Heroes arrive at TG and Hawkwing gets all het up "Oi Lews Therin!What you doing with that? Give it back then. It's mine!"

 

Alright, I forgot about this: he wears it because it "feels right", and there's obviously some odd "Wheel weaves" thingy going on. So, OK. I'm cool with that. The other stuff still bugs me though:

 

When did he get it exactly? Don't know. Sometime after dropping off the Seanchan chicks by Ebou Dar. Where did he get it? From some scholars. Who were they? Scholars, dude. Well, why did they do that? No clue. Ta'veren thing maybe. Where'd they find it? In some lake somewhere or other (admittedly, a cool detail, but still). What happened to Laman's blade? *shrug*

 

Oh, and also, it's not a bastard sword: "The weapon was long, slightly curved..." Ituralde doesn't bat an eye when he sees it or mentally qualify it as being like one of the Shienaran or Saldaean curvy things or whatever. Sound like another katana-in-all-but-name to me.

 

This also kinda bugs me, as tGH said "his great sword Justice", which implied it was not a standard-shaped sword, though to be fair, I suppose it could have just meant it was a really awesome sword. I'd say it could be basically an ōdachi, which would make sense given that the name means "great sword", but those are too long to wear at the waist. Then again, Rand is pretty tall and might be able to swing it, though that seems dubious. Or maybe it's a tachi. Oh, who knows. I need answers, damn it!

Hawkwing wields it from horseback don't forget. So it can almost certainly, be comfortably used one-handed, especially since Rand almost pulls it a couple of times in TGS. In KoD, he also remarks to Bashere that he's going to learn the forms again.

Could be a 1.5 handed katana, in fact I'd guess that's what it is.

It's possible that another reason he ditched Avi's sword was all in the attempt to harden himself.

He just prefers wearing Hawkwing's sword.

He still has Laman's as well.

In technical terms, it could be as simple as Justice may be a bastard sword (can be used with a single hand or both hands) versus Laman's being a two-hander but his thoughts make it appear that there's more to it.

Could be hilarious if the Heroes arrive at TG and Hawkwing gets all het up "Oi Lews Therin!What you doing with that? Give it back then. It's mine!"

Hi guys ^_^

 

Long time reader, first time poster and all the jazz.

 

Question for if anyone knows though!

 

TGS, Chapter 1, Rand has a sword he's thinking about to himself. Does anyone know which Sword it is? (It may just be me, but it seems as if he's just gotten it, but its....wierd. Almost like its an Angreal or something but he's seen it initially himself. And I don't think its mentioned again? (Re-reading TGS now!)

 

The quote is below if anyone needs it. Hoping you can help :P

 

He relaxed his hand on his sword, though he did not release it. He fingered the cloth-tied hilt. The weapon was long, slightly curved, and the lacquered scabbard was painted with a long, sinuous dragon of red and gold. It looked as if it had been designed specifically for Rand— and yet it was centuries old, unearthed only recently. How odd, that they should find this now, he thought, and make a gift of it to me, completely unaware of what they were holding. . . .

He had taken to wearing the sword immediately. It felt right beneath his fingers. He had told no one, not even Min, that he had recognized the weapon. And not, oddly, from Lews Therin's memories—but Rand's own.

Confirmed by Brandon that it's Hawkwing's sword "Justice" (He saw it at Falme). Not known if it's important yet plot-wise. It's mentioned again in TGS from Min's PoV - Rand told her it's power wrought.